Authentic Connections In The Air With Nik Tarascio

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life

Nik Tarascio was born into the family aviation business.

While we were probably picking our noses, Nik was working on airplanes by the age of four. He received his pilot’s license by the age of 16, was flying Lear jets by the age of 19 and, today, is the CEO of Ventura Aviation.

Nik is responsible for his multimillion dollar family charter company. He is an excellent musician and is still a practicing pilot himself.

Despite his history of social anxiety, Nik is also now building a YouTube and social media community sharing amazing flight adventures and documenting it for the world to see.

Today, we’ll be discussing what it’s like running a tight-knit family business. Nik shares how to make aviation more accessible and how he gets out of his comfort zone. And he also shares how he is able to leverage his unique talents to cultivate meaningful relationships miles up in the air.

Take a listen!

Key Points From This Episode:

• How working on airplanes cultivated Nik’s entrepreneurship.
• Why Nik didn’t care about school or college.
• Getting a pilot’s license at age 16.
• How Nik accidentally became CEO.
• The epic fail Nik is still paying for.
• Navigating family dynamics in business.
• Why Nik and his family love to teach.
• When the engine cuts in the cockpit.
• How Hamptons chic lead to Summit.
• Overcoming the awkwardness of being awkward.
• Nik’s no-more-than-24-hours trip.
• Making authentic connections.
• Is aviation as expensive as we think?
• And much more!

Tweetables:

“I knew I never really belonged in school.” – @niktarascio

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“It wasn’t until I accidentally became CEO that things started to make a little bit more sense.” — @niktarascio

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[0:12:40].1]

“I learned how to overcome fear in a cockpit.” — @niktarascio

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[0:27:19].1]

“I mean, you want to talk about fear and failure? I was the most awkward dude.” — @niktarascio

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[0:29:55].1]

“Say who you are without any external characteristics, whatsoever.” — @niktarascio

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[0:48:25].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Venture Air Website – http://www.ventura.aero/

Nik on Twitter – https://twitter.com/niktarascio

Nik on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicktarascio/

Nik on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/rockstarnik

Pilot Nik YouTube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI3Ag4EFVgHpSPBykgtM57Q

Nik on Forbes.com – https://www.forbes.com/sites/entrepreneursorganization/2017/07/14/3-steps-to-overcome-your-negative-self-talk/#31c0de154195

Transcript Below:

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 026

“NT: You know what? I learned how to overcome fear in a cockpit, and so I really want to do something with that. I’ve thought a lot about taking a lot of that learning from the cockpit, a lot of that high-performance thinking and creating something where I could teach people about the best learning from the cockpit without them having to be a pilot to do it.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:21.6] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders faced on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:47.4] RN: Hey there, and welcome to show that believes failing in a hyper-focused way is the only way to achieve your dreams. In a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs, and this is a platform for their stories.

Today’s story is of Nik Tarascio. He was born into the family aviation business and was even working on airplanes by the age of four. As the CEO of Ventura Aviation, Nik runs a multimillion dollar charter company and is also a pilot himself. He got his private pilot’s license at the age of 16 and was even flying Lear jets by the age of 19. He’s also now building a YouTube and social media community sharing amazing flight adventures and documenting it for the world to see, and it’s just extremely well done.

We’ll be discussing what it’s like running a family business along with the challenges of actually working with people you have personal relationships with. We’ll talk about how Nik is able to leverage his unique talents that cultivate deep relationships and what he constantly does to make sure he is growing and getting out of his comfort zone on a regular basis.

First, I’ve been traveling a lot as is and I have even more travel coming up, and luckily all I need to travel with is a backpack for one reason only, it’s a shirt from a sweet Toronto apparel company called Unbound Merino. They have clothes made out of merino wool and, get this, you can wear it for months on end without ever needing to have it washed. I don’t know if that’s recommended, but you can do it.

Just talk about an absolute traveler’s dream, never check a bag again. Just please check it at the show notes page at failon.com/026 for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t be able to get anywhere else.

Of course, if you’d like to stay up-to-date on all the Fail On podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:32.5] RN: How did you get started on entrepreneurship and when was this?

[0:02:37.0] NT: I don’t have a defining moment where it shifted. I grew up in a family business and I think it was a slow progression. I think it was really more of just — I tried to copy everything my dad did and try to master every skill he had.

[0:02:53.6] RN: What was he doing?

[0:02:55.0] NT: Early memories were things like we would go out and fix airplanes. We’d take an engine in our basement and rebuild an engine in our basement. I remember 8 years old literally building engines in our basement. We carry it up the stairs, put it in a wood panel, the Grand Caravan, to drive it out to the airport and put it on an engine. I mean put the engine on the front of an airplane.

I really don’t think I was in entrepreneurship until really well into my 20s actually. I think I thought I was. I was like, “Oh, I’m running a business or I’m involved in the management of a business.” Really, I was acting more just a mirror of my father.

[0:03:28.1] RN: How early were you actually working in the business with your dad though? Were you doing stuff at 10 years old to help out? What was that like?

[0:03:35.5] NT: Here’s the way to think about it. Airplanes are tiny. The ones we work on are small and we were tiny kids, so my dad being an entrepreneur was like, “I see opportunity here,” climbing the tail of that airplane and buck some rivets. We could fit in way better. Literally, from the time I was five or six, I was working on airplanes.

I’d say I started playing a more major role when I was 13 and I was doing aircraft sales form. Again, it was more of like, “What does he need to do the calls for?” I have these — At the time, it was like classified ads that I would call and try to negotiate airplane deals. It was funny because I’d be —

[0:04:10.1] RN: At 13?

[0:04:11.0] NT: Yeah. At 13.

[0:04:12.0] RN: That’s awesome.

[0:04:12.2] NT: I’m negotiating a hundred thousand dollar discount on an airplane and I made $7 an hour. I have no concept of money. It was either, “How about 1.1 instead of 1.3 million?” Versus, “Can I make $8 an hour dad? That would be really nice.” Again, I think I was just more of like — I was just a good worker.

[0:04:30.6] RN: Was that at 13? I mean did that just come from your dad — You were watching your dad just bust his ass all the time? How did that from? Where do that come from?

[0:04:39.3] NT: Yeah, I think so. My grandfather was that way. My dad was that way. He just gets it done and he never complained about the amount of work. He was just, “I’m going to do whatever it takes to make it happen.” He would take stuff and be like, “Hey if something is not right, take it apart and put it back together again.”

Very early on he instilled this idea of like understand the fundamentals of what you’re doing. Look at all the core parts, put it back together, you’ll have a greater understanding. Always very mechanical. I actually started the business when I was 13, but I didn’t start it to make money, because I didn’t know anything about sales and marketing. What I knew is that I buy musical instruments, because I’m a musician and if I’m a company that sells musical instruments, I get to buy them at wholesale price.

[0:05:16.7] RN: Yeah, you get discounts.

[0:05:17.7] NT: That’s all I did. I just bought my own stuff at discount. Again, it’s just actually goes to show, I was a thrifty ops guy. I was not a sales and marketing guy.

[0:05:26.6] RN: Gosh! Did you actually end up selling any of those instruments?

[0:05:30.5] NT: I think I sold to my high school some stuff. My friend was like, “Oh, I’ll buy through you what I need to buy for a stage crew.” I was like, “Okay. Cool.” I think, all in all, I probably made a thousand dollars. It was a joke. Everyone else we meet in our networks is like, “When I was selling candy, I made $450,000 at 11 years old.” I’m like, “I made a thousand dollars.”

[0:05:50.3] RN: Yeah. I was telling you when we’re eating Indian food, I didn’t even know what entrepreneurship was until I was out of college. I’m right there with you. I was not born bring lemonade and building a lemonade franchise in my neighborhood like Gary Vaynerchuck always talks about.

You’re 13 years old doing sales. You’re 5, 6 years old crawling into the back of little airplanes. I don’t know what you said. Buck a rivet? I don’t even know what that means. I’m guess you’re screwing something or hammering something.

[0:06:19.3] NT: Sort of. A rivet is a piece of metal that you hit with an impact gun and it flattens it. It flattens the rivet.

[0:06:26.4] RN: I’ve seen them on airplanes.

[0:06:28.0] NT: Trains have them. Yeah, exactly. On the side of an airplanes, those aren’t screws, those are actually pieces of metal that are formed to hold the skin together.

[0:06:33.5] RN: Got it. So you’re doing that?

[0:06:34.5] NT: Yeah.

[0:06:36.0] RN: At five?

[0:06:36.9] NT: Yeah.

[0:06:38.9] RN: Were you not playing with friends? Did you not have friends? That’s not a normal childhood. You’re negotiating a hundred thousand dollar deals and bucking rivets.

[0:06:47.2] NT: Yeah. I was kind of a nerdy, socially awkward kid. I used to get the crap kicked out of me when I was little. I never really liked people in my school. I wanted to be around my school. Instead, I had friends that were 40-year-old pilots. I would sit around and talk to pilots all the time. That was my group really at the end of the day and they would talk to me in ways that you don’t talk to a 13-year-old, like, “Alright. Tell me about the crazy stuff you get into?”

I had a really strange life where I felt more like I was in my 20s and 30s when I was a teenager. I knew I never really belonged in school.

[0:07:19.8] RN: You didn’t belong in school, but you graduated high school?

[0:07:22.5] NT: Yeah. I graduated high school. I went to college. Again, I was like this super nerd.

[0:07:26.8] RN: You got good grades. You really cared or you didn’t care?

[0:07:28.7] NT: I was in like number 8 in my school graduating. I got a scholarship to college. The thing is that I didn’t give a shit. I was one of those guys that like I was in some talented program, like talented kids, gifted kids, whatever the hell they call it and they were like, “Oh! You have to write a book report every year,” and I’d quit right before the book report every year. I was like I don’t care. I don’t see what this does for me. I knew I had good raw materials, I just didn’t have anything to do. However, flying was really sexy and cool, so I mastered aviation in a very, very young age.

[0:07:58.3] RN: When did you get your pilot’s license?

[0:07:59.8] NT: My 16th birthday.

[0:08:01.6] RN: At 16. Okay. So you’re still in high school. That’s — You’re doing crazy stuff. I played tennis growing up, but I wasn’t like bucking rivets and negotiating a hundred thousand dollar deals and getting my pilot’s license. That’s awesome.

You got a scholarship for college. Did you go to college and graduate?

[0:08:20.6] NT: No. I did about a year and a half. Went to Polytechnic University, which is now NYU Poly. The thing is I was really good at math and science, physics, computer stuff.

[0:08:30.3] RN: All the stuff necessary to be a pilot basically.

[0:08:33.3] NT: Kind of. Yeah. Actually, avionics, I use it all the time. I use all the stuff I learned there. I was one of those guys that never went to class, and then would just get an A.

[0:08:42.9] RN: A on the test, on the exam.

[0:08:44.8] NT: Until in my second year I started having classes where the teacher said they were grading me on my attendance, and that’s when I was like, “I’m already not digging this.” My parents wanted me to go and I wanted to be a dick, so I was like, “Alright. I’ll keep going.” At some point I was like, “Look. It’s my money, because it’s my scholarship and I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to live this lifestyle.” No offense to people that went to computer engineering schools, but it wasn’t exactly the culture of people that I wanted to be around.

[0:09:07.8] RN: Would you have gone if you didn’t have a scholarship?

[0:09:09.9] NT: No.

[0:09:11.4] RN: Just for financial reasons.

[0:09:13.5] NT: I just didn’t care enough. I went because it was easy, and that’s why like as long as I was getting good grades and I didn’t have to go to class. I was in. As soon as they were like, “No. You actually have to work at it and it’s going to cost you something.” I’m like, “No. No freaking way. I’m not doing it.”

[0:09:27.1] RN: What were you hoping to get out of your pilot’s license at 16? Did you want to be a fulltime...